This invention relates generally to the conveyor art and more specifically to lightweight, portable, non-mechanized conveyor means for moving heavy or fragile objects, ill or injured patients and the like.
Under current practice, the movement of an injured or ill human onto an emergency stretcher or between emergency table and operating table or hospital bed usually entails considerable movement and lifting of the patient. Not only is the lifting of a patient, particularly if unconscious, difficult for the handlers, but may aggravate or lead to greater injury or damage. In the case of a back injury, for example, it is most desirable to maintain the patient relatively immobile and to avoid lifting of the body, yet it is obvious that transferring the injured party onto and off of a stretcher, into and out of an ambulance, onto and off of an emergency table and ultimately onto a rest bed or operating table requires a multiplicity of movements. To my knowledge, there is no currently available convenient means of accomplishing these moves except to lift or roll the patient between locations. Several attempts have been made in the past to provide some type of conveyor system for laterally shifting a body, as between an emergency table to a bed and vice versa. Such previous attempts have usually entailed complex mechanisms including conveyor rollers, belts, motors and attending mechanisms. Heretofore, a convenient and successful means for accomplishing this desired end result has not been presented and in those instances where some type of conveyor system has been devised, the mechanisms were usually heavy, cumbersome, relatively fixed, immobile and not readily adaptable to meet the various conditions for both emergency onsite movement of the patient and in-hospital usage. Thus there is a need for a convenient, safer way to transfer patients between hospital emergency and transport tables, carts and beds, operating tables and so forth and which preferably is capable of usage in the field or, that is, in emergency onsite conditions, as in transferring an injured party onto and off of a stretcher.